A state-owned bank that kills small firms to feed off their corpses. And still not a hint of shame!

Two reports published yesterday show the Royal Bank of Scotland ruthlessly shaking down, and sometimes shutting down, struggling businesses

A surge of war weariness overtakes many of us on hearing news of yet another banking scandal.

Last week it was Paul Flowers and the Co-op. For years before that, we have breakfasted on tales of sky-high remuneration and rock- bottom incompetence.

But the latest revelations are dismal, even by Fred the Shred standards.

Two reports published yesterday, one by former deputy Bank of England governor Sir Andrew Large, the other compiled for the Government by entrepreneur Lawrence Tomlinson, show the Royal Bank of Scotland ruthlessly shaking down, and sometimes shutting down, struggling businesses.

In some cases, companies that could have beaten the recession and emerged into profitability suffered foreclosure of the bank’s loans.

The ugliest charge is that RBS’s property arm sometimes sold on at a profit the business premises of the bank’s victims.

This new-wave grave robbery shocks even those well-accustomed to bankers’ iniquities. Tomlinson concludes: ‘The treatment some of these companies have had is horrendous.’

RBS is, of course, owned by us, the taxpayer, as a result of the shocking incompetence of its erstwhile chief executive Fred Goodwin. Thus, the more recent of these dirty deeds have been done in our name.

Of course, banks sometimes have a duty to call time on failing businesses that are going nowhere.

But these reports show that RBS’s treatment of some of its business borrowers was at best insensitive and often plain brutal.

The bank has now appointed lawyers Clifford Chance to investigate the charges. But since the businesses concerned have long since gone to the knackers, this is unlikely to do anyone much good, save the partners in Clifford Chance. (Indeed, lawyers will make a turn out of the Day of Judgment.)

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But the rest of us, almost to a man and woman clients of banks, are left to ask: what is to be done about the people responsible for our money, who so consistently betray their responsibilities?

Yesterday, I asked several friends who know banking intimately whether, in their view, there has been real change in the industry’s culture since the financial crisis broke in 2008. All responded unhesitatingly: no.

Rewards have fallen back a little, but why should this matter to — say — Jamie Dimon, American boss of the financial services giant JP Morgan? He presided over the rogue trading fiasco of the so-called ‘London whale’ case, which cost his bank almost £5 billion in 2010.

By way of punishment, his own remuneration was cut to a measly £7 million last year, about half the previous year’s figure. But since he has amassed a fortune in excess of £300 million, this is unlikely to cause him to take the kids out of private school or tell his wife to stay away from Gucci.

The bankers' achievement is that they have trapped global capitalism in a grip so tight that no amount of public and political abuse, or critical reports such as those published yesterday about RBS, seems able to break it

Meeting bankers socially, I discern no hint of collective shame or guilt about the shambles they have inflicted on us all, nor about their own grotesque rewards. Some, indeed, take me to task across dinner tables for writing articles such as this, branding them as a gang of sleazeballs.

How could anyone commit such a shocking libel against them, they demand indignantly, when they belong to smart clubs, pay their racing trainers on the nail, and will be in church singing carols along with the rest of us on Christmas Day, thanking God absolutely sincerely for their bonuses?

The bankers’ achievement is that they have trapped global capitalism in a grip so tight that no amount of public and political abuse, denunciations from the Archbishop of Canterbury, or critical reports such as those published yesterday about RBS, seems able to break it.

You may recall there is a big ongoing row between London and the European Union about its threatened introduction of a transaction tax on all banking business, which the British Government fears will severely damage our financial services industry.

Some of us would argue that we already have a transaction levy in place, imposed not for the benefit of the Exchequer, but for that of bankers.

Lawrence Tomlinson, whose business empire is estimated to be worth £500 million, says: 'The treatment some of these companies have had [from RBS] is horrendous'

Each time any of us writes a cheque or uses a credit card, the bankers take their cut — and what a cut — without getting out of bed.

If you ever send money abroad, your bank will charge you — what, £25 or more? — for making a payment that has probably cost about 50p.

On a grander scale, when investment banks do business for companies and governments, their cosy club extracts vast fees — look at what Goldman Sachs made out of the recent Post Office flotation, as well as securing a fat tranche of shares for itself.

RBS’s so-called Global Restructuring Group, which conducted the property profiteering operation out of struggling small businesses described in yesterday’s reports, stands indicted of having deliberately forced the closure of some firms in order to turn a profit by flogging off portions of the carcasses.

Much of the trouble stems from the fact that most banks are far too big to be effectively monitored and supervised by any board.

A couple of years ago, HSBC suffered huge embarrassment when its Mexican operation was found to be providing banking facilities for a string of drug barons, some of whom had been responsible for scores of murders, including those of U.S. narcotics agents.

Only with difficulty did the British Government and Bank of England dissuade the enraged American authorities from subjecting half the board of HSBC to criminal prosecutions that could have cost the business its bank licence.

A friend of mine at the regulatory end of the story said that it represented a case study in bank oversizing: HSBC’s board had no clue about what its Mexican division was up to.

At a humbler level, many retail banking customers lose patience with the incompetence with which our affairs are handled.

I left Barclays a decade ago after it made one blunder too many. I am now parting company with a RBS subsidiary for the same reason. Their absence of contrition or hint of redress made my blood curdle.

But where to go? No major British bank is untainted by scandal or excess, Payment Protection Insurance mis-selling being merely foremost on the charge sheet.

I am now moving my modest affairs to a small private bank not many people have heard of. I know that RBS does not care sixpence about losing me — indeed it is probably grateful to see the back of a customer who proclaims its follies in the Daily Mail.

The only credible answer to the giant horror story the industry represents is to break up the giant banks, so that their successors can offer real competition.

Lawrence Tomlinson, whose business empire spans care homes, software and chemicals and which is estimated to be worth £500 million, highlights this issue in his own report this week, and is merely following the example of almost every informed critic since 2008.

Since the Government owns controlling stakes in both RBS and Lloyds, it is ideally placed to make this happen.

It is a waste of time inviting the bankers to reform themselves. Since their ethical standards compare unfavourably with those of Don Corleone or Attila the Hun, a new deal must be forced upon them.

Britain needs a strong banking and financial services industry, which makes an important contribution to the economy. But the latest reports on RBS emphasise that from JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon downwards, they are undeserving of public trust, which was once the proudest possession of every half-decent bank.

Like every other breed of dangerous dog, they are only safe when chained.